Cast Iron

Chapter twenty

By the time Enzo and Fabien got back to the apartment, they were both a little glassy-eyed. They had polished off the champagne and spent the rest of the morning in the Forum. Now, they realised, most of Enzo’s birthday-party guests had already arrived.

Nicole greeted them in the hall, her face dark with anger. ‘Where have you been?’

‘You told us to get out from under your feet,’ Enzo said.

She peered at them suspiciously in the gloom of the hallway. ‘Have you two been drinking?’

Enzo and Fabien exchanged innocent looks.

‘Us?’ Fabien said.

And Enzo shook his head vigorously. ‘Noooo, no, no, no, no. Just a little toast to your wedding.’

She glared at them. ‘Nearly everyone’s here, and they’re all wondering where you are.’

‘Then they need wonder no longer,’ Enzo said, and he strode off into the séjour.

The first of the guests to greet him was Commissaire Hélène Taillard, the town’s chief of police, a statuesque woman, somewhere in her middle forties. She had freed blond-streaked brown hair, normally pinned up beneath her hat, to fall in curls over her shoulders. She greeted him with a ‘Happy birthday, Enzo,’ and kissed him on both cheeks, her plump, rouged lips lingering overlong on his face. He breathed in the familiar scent of her perfume, and remembered with relief how they had once narrowly avoided having sex. He had been saved from his own libido only by the timely, or untimely, arrival of Sophie. How different might things have been now if she had not returned home when she did?

Kirsty was there, too, baby Alexis the centre of attention among the female guests. She gave her father a hug and a kiss. ‘Happy birthday, Papa,’ she said.

He looked around and turned to Nicole. ‘Where’s Sophie?’

But Nicole just shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Happy birthday, old fella.’ Préfet Jean-Luc Verne pumped his hand. It was his little joke, since he was several years Enzo’s senior. Enzo attempted a smile. He and the chief administrator of the Département du Lot were old friends, accustomed to intellectual sparring and the occasional game of chess. The state-appointed préfet was a graduate of the Ecole Nationale d’Administration, and a formidable intellect in his own right. It was he, along with Commissaire Taillard, who had called Enzo to task at a dinner party one night when the Scotsman had boasted that his forensic experience, coupled with the latest science, could easily solve the seven cold-case murders in the book, then just published, by Parisian journalist Roger Raffin. Bets had been placed in the amount of 2,000 euros, and the following morning, in the cold light of day, Enzo had cursed his predilection for a glass or three of good Cahors wine and his foolishness in accepting the bet.

He did the rounds of all his guests. Neighbours and friends, colleagues from the university, and was surprised to see Nicole’s father there. The old farmer had made an attempt to smarten himself up, his hair plastered to his head with some highly perfumed oil. He wore a jacket that was a size too small, and buttoned over an expansive belly which stretched out the creases of his white shirt. The knot on his blue tie was tied too tightly and Enzo wondered how he would ever get it undone. He recalled the day the two of them had rolled around on the floor in here, knocking lumps out of one another, when the farmer had believed Enzo to be taking advantage of his daughter. Now he shook Enzo’s hand warmly. ‘She’s told you the news?’

Enzo nodded. ‘She has.’

‘I’ve tried to persuade her to stay on at the university, but she won’t hear of it.’

‘Then we’ll have to get together and use our joint powers of persuasion.’

‘Oui, oui, we will.’

Enzo saw that the man’s glass was empty and reached for a bottle to refill it. ‘Daughters, eh?’

‘Enzo, are these your notes on the Lucie Martin case?’

Enzo turned at the sound of Hélène’s voice to see her looking up at his whiteboard with Préfet Verne. He made his way across the room to join them. ‘What powers of deduction you have, Hélène — given that her name is written up there in bold, blue letters next to Régis Blanc’s.’

She cast him a withering look. ‘One day,’ she said, ‘I’m sure you’ll tell me all about the phone call I received from the gendarmerie in Duras the other night, asking whether a certain Enzo Macleod was someone I would think capable of breaking into a château.’

Enzo shifted uncomfortably. ‘A misunderstanding.’

‘I’m sure it was.’ She lifted a sceptical eyebrow.

The préfet said, nodding towards the whiteboard, ‘Are you making any progress with this thing?’

Enzo was guarded. ‘Some.’

‘Confident, then?’ Hélène asked.

‘As confident as I was with all the others.’

‘Well, even if you do crack it,’ Préfet Verne said, ‘the final case — Raffin’s wife — that seems to me to be the trickiest of the lot.’

And Enzo knew that it would be. There was almost nothing to go on. Marie had returned alone one winter’s night to their empty apartment in the Rue de Tournon. Although there were no signs of a break-in, someone had been waiting for her there in the dark, and smashed her head in with a heavy brass ornament. There were no fingerprints, and in the absence of all forensic evidence — fibres, DNA — the police had been at a loss. There was no apparent motive for the attack, and Raffin himself had been at an editorial meeting at the offices of the left-wing newspaper Libération. He had discovered her body on his return home.

However it would be tricky, not for any of those reasons, but because it was personal. She had been Raffin’s wife, and Raffin was the father of Enzo’s grandson. He and Raffin had never once talked about the murder, but Enzo sensed that it was still a raw and painful subject for him, the unsolved murder in his own life that had prompted him to research and write about the other six cold cases in his book.

All he said in response to the préfet was, ‘I agree.’

‘Of course,’ Hélène said, ‘you haven’t always used your precious new science to resolve some of these cases. I’m not sure that should be allowable under the terms of the bet.’

‘Sometimes new thinking is just as important,’ Enzo said.

‘Thinking outside of the box?’ said the préfet.

‘No,’ Enzo said. ‘Taking the box away altogether. Why put up walls to contain free thinking?’

The préfet said, ‘Quite so.’ And he looked around the room. ‘I don’t see your friend Simon here. I do hope he’s still holding the money for our wager in his escrow account, and hasn’t skipped off and spent it on a round-the-world cruise.’

‘He’s more likely to have spent it on some woman,’ Enzo said darkly. Then forced a smile. ‘I’m afraid he couldn’t be here today.’

‘Ah, the great man himself, engaged in debate no doubt about the resolution of the Raffin murders.’ Charlotte’s voice, edged lightly with sarcasm, cut into their conversation. Enzo turned to see her, still in her coat, Laurent supported in the crook of her arm, and his heart lifted at the sight of his young son.

He took him immediately and kissed him, and bounced him gently up and down in his arms. ‘I didn’t know you were here,’ he said to Charlotte.

‘I’ve just arrived.’ She turned her smile on the préfet and the chief of police. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me?’

Enzo made slightly awkward introductions, trying hard to avoid Hélène’s eye.

‘Ah, yes, the second and third parties in the famous bet,’ Charlotte said. And she smiled. ‘You must be getting worried.’

‘He still has two — very difficult — cases to go,’ Hélène said.

‘Perhaps. But who would bet against him now?’ And she turned to Enzo. ‘I need a word. In private.’

Enzo turned to look for Nicole and, as if by instinct, she materialised beside him, arms outstretched to take baby Laurent. ‘On you go,’ she said. ‘I’ll look after him.’

Almost reluctantly, Enzo let him go. He made his apologies to the others and he and Charlotte headed out into the hall. ‘Let’s go outside,’ she said, and he followed her down the winding stairs to the studded door that opened on to the pavement. They weaved through the tables of the pizzeria to stand at the kerbside and she said, ‘It’s on for tomorrow.’

‘Blanc?’ Enzo’s eyes opened wide in amazement. ‘How did you manage it?’

‘It wasn’t easy, I’ll tell you that. The prison authorities usually require several weeks’ notice and prior security clearance. You’ll need to bring your passport with you.’ She paused. ‘You’ll be presenting yourself as my assistant.’

Enzo smiled wryly. ‘A little old to be your assistant, amn’t I?’

She returned a smile that never quite reached her eyes. ‘Enzo, you are a little old for everything.’

The barb did not fail to draw blood, and his smile faded. He said, ‘I’ve asked Nicole to look after Laurent until you get back.’

‘Until I get back? That makes it sound like you won’t be with me.’

‘I won’t. I’m going to ask Kirsty to follow us down to Lannemezan in her car, and then the two of us will head on over to Biarritz. She has an appointment with a consultant to discuss Alexis’s hearing problem.’

Charlotte raised an eyebrow. ‘Alexis has a hearing problem?’

‘Apparently. They’ve seen several doctors. He seems to be suffering from partial deafness, but no one can explain why or what to do about it.’

‘Oh dear,’ Charlotte said, although there was not the least trace of sympathy in her tone. ‘I suppose you’ll be staying at Roger’s place down there? In the apartment?’

‘That’s right.’

‘It’s a beautiful house,’ she said, and Enzo realised immediately that she was letting him know that she and Raffin had stayed there. ‘Used to be his wife’s family home. Shame they turned it into a chambres d’hôtes. It’s a special place.’ She smiled at him, eyes wide, satisfying herself that she had inflicted a little more pain. Enzo returned her gaze, marvelling at her ability to hurt him so easily. And she added, ‘I must say, it was very convenient for Roger’s wife to die the way she did.’

Enzo frowned. ‘Convenient?’

‘For Roger.’ Charlotte hooked her arm around Enzo’s and led him slowly along the pavement. ‘Marie inherited everything after her parents died in a boating accident in Africa. Then, just five years later, she’s dead, too, and it all goes to Roger. I would call that very convenient.’

‘Not if you lose the person you love at the same time,’ Enzo said. ‘I wouldn’t call that very convenient at all.’

‘Perhaps. But there was no love lost between Roger and Marie, you know. They were still married, yes. But in name only. Had she lived, I think there might very well have been a divorce in the offing.’ She stopped and sighed. ‘I have often wondered just how closely the police examined his alibi.’

Enzo’s brows creased in consternation. ‘He was at an editorial meeting at Libération.’

‘Apparently. But, as you very well know, Enzo, in such matters timing is everything.’

Enzo did, but found himself instinctively shying away from the implication that the father of his daughter’s baby could have murdered his own wife. He searched Charlotte’s eyes for some hint of the motivation that might have made her put the thought out there. After all, she had been Raffin’s lover, too. But she just smiled and laughed and changed the subject.

‘So, how are things progressing with the Lucie Martin case?’

He shrugged, and they turned and headed back along the pavement, casting shadows among tables that were rapidly filling up for lunch. ‘There have been developments.’

She turned a look of curiosity towards him. ‘Oh?’

And he told her about the damage to the skull, and the forensic anthropologist’s suggestion that it could have been the cause of death. ‘In which case,’ he said, ‘strangulation would have taken place post-mortem, ostensibly to make it look like she’d been killed by Blanc.’

Her face hardened. ‘Obviously you knew this when you came to Paris the other day.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you never thought to tell me then.’

‘You never asked. And, anyway, we had other things to talk about.’

He saw her jaw set. ‘Yes, we did.’ She stopped and turned to face him, almost confrontational. ‘So why do you still want to see Blanc?’

‘Because there’s a connection between Blanc and Lucie that goes beyond the letter.’

‘What the boyfriend saw?’ Charlotte could barely keep the scepticism out of her voice.

‘Not just that. The whole tone and content of his letter has always suggested to me that there was more to it.’

‘Ah, yes, the famous Macleod instinct.’ She pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘So you still think Blanc might have done it?’

‘I’m keeping all options open.’

‘And is there another suspect in the frame?’

Enzo nodded. ‘The boyfriend, of course. Jilted by his childhood sweetheart for a lowlife ex-con, he kills her in a fit of jealousy.’

She frowned. ‘From my recollection, he was in Paris the weekend she went missing.’

Enzo shrugged his shoulders very casually. ‘As you very well know, Charlotte, in such matters, timing is everything.’

She glared at him for a moment, then her face cracked into a smile and she laughed. ‘Touché, Enzo. Touché.’

‘Monsieur Macleod!’ Nicole’s voice was raised to carry above the noise of the diners below. Enzo and Charlotte looked up to see her on the Juliette balcony outside Enzo’s apartment, still holding Laurent. ‘I just got a text from Sophie. Apparently the van’s broken down on the motorway. They’re not going to make it.’

Enzo gasped his frustration. ‘Typical bloody Sophie!’ he said.